by B. M. Hardin
I also told him of my plans for when I returned.
I wasn’t playing around anymore.
Not with the hotel.
Not with Carmen.
And not with these cheating, disrespectful ass clients either.
The client rammed his penis inside of me as though he was trying to make a point.
I looked at him confusedly, yet my mouth was trained to fake moan whether I was enjoying the moment or not.
To be honest, he was just giving himself a work out.
I could barely feel a thing.
But I could see that he had something to prove so I pretended to let him prove it.
Maybe his woman cheated on him or something and he had to prove to himself that he still had it or whatever.
After he’d pumped himself damn near to death, finally he released himself and jumped off of me as though he’d just committed a crime.
Without saying a word, he got dressed and slammed something down on the table by the door just before walking out of it.
I got myself together, straightened up the room and went to get what I thought was a tip.
It was…one dollar bill.
Bastard!
Oh well, I would get a decent cut from Carmen anyway, but the whole ordeal just confirmed that I would do anything necessary to get out of the game.
It was time for me to go.
Point. Blank. Period.
I headed to shower and of course Carmen was waiting for me once I was dressed.
“So are you excited about your family trip?” Carmen asked.
I’d told her that I was going on a family getaway.
Carmen was so damn nosey that I had to make sure that all of the basics were covered.
Josephine was keeping Horizon and they were actually driving up to visit her husband Grant’s family in Washington D.C. for a few days.
So just in case Carmen had something up her sleeve, they would be gone too and all would look legit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Carmen had done some kind of background check on me and knew where everyone in my entire family lived.
I was sure that she had because crazy people do crazy things.
I nodded at her as she headed down the elevator with me, still chatting.
I thought that she was going to stop once we got to the downstairs office, but she didn’t.
She continued to talk and walked outside with me.
I pretended to be listening to her and I couldn’t wait for her sentence to come to an end so that I could tell her I had to go but the sudden screech of tires turned both of our attention to the street.
Two cars almost collided but thankfully the cars stopped just inches from each other.
“Oh my goodness! I almost had a flashback of…”
Carmen cut her sentence short.
I looked at her.
Of what?
“Of what?” I asked her.
She didn’t say anything.
She just pretended to be paying attention to the two cars.
“Of what?”
She looked at me.
It was almost as if she was trying to see if I was really a friend or a foe.
I smiled at her and tried to look sincere.
But I was dying to know what she had to say next.
“A flashback of the accident that killed my so-called sister and my niece,” Carmen said with disgust.
What?
A flashback of the accident?
So she was there?
“What do you mean?”
I could tell that she didn’t want to have the conversation.
“I was there. I’d spotted them coming out of a store and I followed them. I was just curious as to where they were going. I hadn’t seen my sister in years and that was only the second time that I’d seen the girl. I was just wondering where they would go next. so I just followed them. But only a minute or two later down the road, the car came out of nowhere and hit them head on. I saw the whole thing. It was like something that you saw on a movie. The way that they’d collided I knew that everyone was dead. But I didn’t stop to help or stop to see. I just drove away. They got what they deserved,” Carmen said.
Oh, this woman was sick and twisted in the inside!
There was no way that I could have watched my own flesh and blood, die, and then just drive away as though I hadn’t seen a thing.
No matter the hurt, angry, hate or pain, I just couldn’t believe that Carmen could do something like that.
But then again, Carmen was something else.
I’d felt my share of hate before, but I was scared of Carmen’s level of hate.
I never wanted to feel like that about anybody.
I didn’t bother to comment to what she’d said, instead, I said goodbye and told her to call me if she needed me, though I didn’t really mean it.
Once inside of my car, I thought about what Carmen had said.
I wondered how Silas would feel if he knew that Carmen had seen the accident and hadn’t tried to help.
Who knows…maybe they weren’t dead just yet.
Maybe one of them could have lived or needed something as simple as CPR and all Carmen would have had to do was get out of the car and assist.
But she hadn’t.
Her heart was as cold as ice and she didn’t love anybody; not even herself.
Driving down the road, I figured that it was really nothing to tell Silas. so I would just let it be.
There was no point in opening old wounds, especially since we were about to be on vacation.
With the beaches of the Bahamas on my mind, I shook away all of the negative and agonizing thoughts and allowed myself to focus on positivity and my pre-honeymoon.
It was time for some fun in the sun and boy was it long overdue!
***
It was day two in the Bahamas and I was having so much fun, that it all felt like a dream.
It was a dream come true and I never wanted to wake up from it.
Everything was so perfect!
The island was so beautiful.
The people on it were beautiful.
And the man by my side was beautiful.
I truly felt like the luckiest woman in the world and I was enjoying every minute of it.
“I love you baby,” Silas chimed as we sat on the beach, looking up at the moon.
“Oh, I love you too. So much, I really do,” I responded to him.
I almost became emotional because I just couldn’t believe that I was in this place or in this space in time and in my life.
A few years ago I would have never even thought that I would be somewhere enjoying something like this.
I could barely pay my bills and now I was in the Bahamas.
And I had a man by my side that loved me.
He showed it in every way and every day and though some things were questionable, his love wasn’t one of them.
The way he loved me was unexplainable.
And I couldn’t wait to be his wife.
I looked around the beach to see how many people were there.
It was a few scattered folks here and there, but none were too close to us.
I proceeded to unzip his kakis and he looked at me as though I was crazy but he didn’t stop me.
I touched him and at the warmth of my hand, his manhood started to swell.
I stroked it for only a while and soon after, I swallowed it whole.
Hey…we might as well make this a vacation that we would never forget.
***
“I don’t want to go back,” I whined to Silas.
It was our last day in the Bahamas and we were enjoying lunch before it was time for us to leave.
I’d enjoyed myself so much that I told him that we absolutely had to come back someday.
Maybe not for our real honeymoon, but someday in the near future.
I felt so at peace while there and it was as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
Noth
ing was on my mind the entire time but peace, love, joy and happiness and I just wished that things could always be that way.
But reality was calling…and so was Carmen.
She’d called a couple of times but I hadn’t answered.
Whether she wanted to discuss something personal or business, once I got off that plane and encountered such beauty, I decided that I didn’t want to be bothered with anything or anybody back in North Carolina.
Well, except checking up on Horizon of course.
Silas and I finished our lunch and then we headed back to the hotel to prepare to leave.
After making love one last time, with all of our things, we headed to the airport only to find out that our flight had been delayed.
Silas had brought his laptop along and said that he could sit and take care of a few things.
Since we had a few hours, I told him that I was going back out to visit a few places that I hadn’t been able to get to.
I promised that I would be back plenty of time before it was time to board the plan, so Silas agreed and I headed on my way.
I really wanted to stay.
The people were friendly and seemed so happy.
It seemed as though they had a natural high; no weed or alcohol needed.
But I liked it.
My curls were blowing wildly in the wind and disobedient hairs tickled my nose.
I giggled as I entered the store.
I started grabbing any and everything that I could carry.
I wanted as many memories of this place as possible.
Finally calling it quits, I carried all of my merchandise to the counter.
The chocolate stallion of a man stared at me the entire time that he scanned my items, so my flirty ass winked.
If I was single, he could have considered his bones jumped, but since I wasn’t, I would just smile and be a little flirty.
I grabbed my wallet from my purse but just as I went into it to pull out Silas’s bank card, something caught my attention.
I listened attentively to what was going on and what was being said at the counter beside of me.
Anger started to stir up inside of me and after a while I could no longer keep my cool.
As the cashier waited for my payment, I headed over to the lady beside me instead.
I tapped her on the back and she turned to face me.
“Sonni?” I said to my sister who was supposed to be dead.
She looked at me as if she didn’t know me and soon after she spoke.
“I’m sorry but you have me confused with someone else. My name is Savannah,” my sister said.
****************************************
Chapter EIGHT
“Savannah my ass! What are you doing here Sonni? You’re supposed to be dead!” I yelled furiously.
Sonni finished paying for her things and then proceeded to walk out of the store.
I didn’t bother to pay for mine and I followed behind her.
Outside she walked as though she didn’t know that I was following her.
Itching to whoop her ass, I grabbed her arm and forced her to face me.
“What the hell is going on Sonni?”
She let out a deep breath in frustration.
Finally she walked to a bench and sat down.
“Sonni, what the hell is going on here?” I asked her for the last time.
“I faked my death, what does it look like Envy?”
Bitch!
Who does that?
And furthermore, whose damn ashes was I talking to every damn day?
I had so many questions and she was going to answer them and she was going to answer them right damn now!
“So you didn’t or don’t have cancer?”
“Hell no. I’m as healthy as an ox. It was just all a part of my plan to disappear. I hated having to shave my head but I figured that eventually it would grow back. Even those fake chemotherapy treatments that Josephine thought that she was accompanying me to were all a scheme. Let’s just say a lot of people owed me a few favors. It was the perfect plan,” Sonni said.
I looked at her in disbelief.
I just didn’t understand.
“Why Sonni? Why?”
“Why not? There are plenty of reasons why. I just wanted out. I just wanted to be free. No husband. No kids. No family. Just me. Living the normal life or the life that everybody else wanted to live, just didn’t work for me. I was miserable. When I said that I don’t love anyone, like I was or am supposed to; I meant it. But many people hate the truth. But it is my truth. I also faked my death to get away from my crazy lover who couldn’t accept the fact that I didn’t love him either,” Sonni said.
What?
It just broke my heart that she hated us all so much that she would have rather we think that she was dead than to actually live life enjoying us.
What happened to her?
Why had she been made this way?
I just didn’t understand.
And Sonni was also having an affair too?
I guess that’s the real reason that she didn’t care that he was sleeping with Josephine.
“Sonni, I just don’t understand all of this,” I said aloud.
“It’s not meant for you to understand. You were never supposed to find out. I had it all worked out. A few friends of mine had everything covered and did everything just right. You and the others were never supposed to know. Only the people involved in the plan, myself, and my husband of course.”
What?
Mark, Sonni’s ex, current, or whatever husband, knew about this?
“Mark knew about this?”
“Of course he did. The plan wouldn’t have worked without him.”
“And he agreed to this stupid ass plan?” I said angrily.
“Of course he did. We didn’t love each other. I never truly loved him and he’d fallen out of love with me a long time ago. And besides…I paid him. Whether you believe it or not, everybody has a price and anyone can be bought,” Sonni said.
I was sick and tired of dealing with crazy people!
She was just as crazy as everybody else.
“Paid him? Paid him for what? His silence? But why? And you guys have, or had, plenty of money with the company so why would he agree to something like this for money?”
Sonni looked at me as if she’d never seen anyone so stupid in her whole entire life.
“Honey that business flopped years ago. We were broke and in debt.”
Huh?
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked her.
“Say something to who---you? How where you going to help me? Besides, I found a way to fix it all on my own.”
“How?”
She laughed out loud.
It was the creepiest laugh I’d ever heard.
“By doing the same thing that you do,” she said with a straight face.
What the hell did she mean by that?
“Your first day at the hotel, the day that you signed your contract, was my last day at the hotel.”
You have got to be kidding me!
“I would mostly stay my four days on, at the hotel, on the thirteenth floor, because after all, it is a long drive from there to back home. We were going to move back to Charlotte, but Carmen said that staying at the hotel wasn’t a problem. As long as she could sell my ass during work hours, she didn’t care. And even some nights, she would need me to fill in if someone couldn’t make it in. I would only leave the hotel late in the evenings; when I was sure that you were gone, and home with Horizon by then. I was always on edge about running into you, but I never did. I never even saw you. I’d actually thought you’d quit or something until that day. That day, you followed Carmen and walked right passed me without even looking in my direction. But I knew from those curves and hips, without even seeing your face, at first, that it was you. Anyway, one of their connections had done business with me in the past and when he heard about my financial troubles, he offered to h
elp. And by helping he sent me in Carmen’s direction. I’d gone by the name Savannah, at the hotel. Savannah has always been a part of me. Savannah is me. And I am Savannah. I used to deny that she existed, and it took me years to accept that Savannah lived inside of me. She was in my mind and in my heart. She’s the only person that has ever understood me. So, finally, I stopped fighting her and learned to embrace her. Life is so much easier with her,” Sonni said.
What the hell was she talking about?
And who in the hell was Savannah?
Was Savannah a person, an imaginary friend or what?
Ok so, Sonni was bipolar?
Or was she schizophrenic?
Or did she just have multiple personalities?
I was so confused.
But even more than confused, I was sad.
I’d never known just how sick she was until now and I’d failed her as a big sister.
I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know that it was this.
“As I said I’d done a few favors when business was good to earn a few friends for life, so I had them make me a fake ID and social to match. I just didn’t want any ties to that place. So if you’ve ever mentioned my name, my real one, Carmen wouldn’t know that we were related; unless she noticed that we kind of look alike. Anyway, I made plenty of money and enough to pay off every debt that we had. Of course, Mark knew what I was doing and never questioned me as long as I brought home the bacon. He screwed Josephine and I screwed the men at the hotel. I’d thought that I was doing it for my family. I was trying so hard to be normal. But I finally realized that I didn’t really care about anyone other than myself. After leaving the hotel, somehow one of my regulars became obsessed with me. Mr. Ben. Have you ever screwed him? Honey, he just wouldn’t leave me alone. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t see him or sleep with him. For a while I still had sex with him, just for the money, but when I couldn’t give him what he wanted, he started acting insane. So, I developed the cancer lie to throw him off too. And slowly but surely since he thought that I was dying, he started to back off. I figured that maybe he’d found someone else to bother. But I often saw him ride by our house, just to check and see if I was dead yet, I suppose. I heard that he went to jail just as I was disappearing, but I’m not for sure. But anyway, since I’d wanted to be free and enjoy my life and all of the money that I’d made, the cancer and faking my death plan was my way out. I’d just needed a way out. Pretending to die simply solved all of my problems. So, for those few months I played the part. I offered Mark a good bit of money, paid everyone in positions to make sure that everything looked legit, and just like that in the eyes of everyone…I was dead.”